Teacher / Educator
Darunee Tan
Chiang Mai
Areas of Specialization
Soil scientist and educator in Chiang Mai, with a PhD in soil chemistry
Darunee Tan was born in Bangkok in 1952 and studied at Chulalongkorn University. As a student she was struck by the contrast between the promise of the Green Revolution and the poverty of rural areas, especially the Northeast.
She went on to a Master's degree in soil science at the University of Georgia in Athens, and a PhD in soil chemistry at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Her years in the United States introduced her to the study of international development and social movements, and to the community experiments in alternative living of the late 1970s and early 1980s, around the time permaculture was emerging.
She is based in Chiang Mai, where she teaches on soil and compost, agroforestry and sufficiency economy.
Her motto: “Walk on with hope in your heart and you will never walk alone.”